


In Between

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: DISPATCH BOX [22]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Canon Compliant, M/M, True Love, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 07:06:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7881328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps it is simply because it is springtime in London, and I long for the opportunity to throw open the windows, to air out our rooms from some dreadful, noxious experiment, and to hear once more him play his violin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Doctor Watson reflects on his relationship with Sherlock Holmes--retrospectively.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Between

[This piece, like only a few others in Doctor John Watson’s infamous dispatch box of unpublished writing, is crisp and clean. It has been folded once and does not appear to have been opened and re-read often—if at all.]  
  
It has been nearly three years. Three years ago—well, it will be three years on the 5th of May—I lost my beloved. After I—extremely reluctantly and every word felt as if I was writing it in my own blood—finished writing what was to be entitled by my publisher “The Final Problem” (which, when considered objectively as an author, was a terrible disappointment in that it somewhat gave away the story before the reader had absorbed my first sentence), I have not had any more of our stories in print. I have written many, and perhaps someday I will have the heart to bring them to my publisher, but at the moment I do not have the fortitude.  
  
As the weather warms and spring arrives in England as it always does—tentatively, as if it was taking itself by surprise—I am occasionally caught in a light rain, and the feel of the mist on my face brings me there. There on the precipice of the Reichenbach Falls—wanting to peer over the edge into the chasm but knowing that that would be foolhardy.  
  
The entire affair did actually proceed as I presented it. I did not have the heart to embellish and no need to change any names, locations, dates. The news of the demise of the famous detective would soon reach around the world. It is my understanding that, other than in London itself, the largest impact that news had was on his admirers in America. This does not surprise me. Americans live in an expansive, rich, and youthful state of what seems to me to be continual celebration. Sometimes that celebration can be of the smallest things—the joy of a returned affection; the encouragement of a shared laugh; the ebullience of a pocket full of cash on pay day—but celebrate it they do, but when the news is bad, the passion that Americans bring to their mourning is both alarming and entirely admirable. Why should not the death of a friend, an acquaintance, or a hero not evoke the same intensity of passion and the expression of emotions that the death of a child, a parent, or a spouse elicits?  
  
Why cannot I celebrate his life and mourn his death with the intensity with which I actually experience both? Is it because I am British? An ex-army captain? A doctor? —both occupations being rife with deaths of the most horrific natures. Is it because our love was illicit?  
  
Or is it because that is the way he would have wished me to be—stoic when presenting myself to the public? Brave and steady and calm in the face of danger?  
  
It is, of course, all of those elements at once, and more, but it is—I will admit it here, in my private papers—only a façade.  
  
In the privacy of our rooms, I am anguish and sorrow. I am devastation and horror. I am empty. I am racked by guilt. Why could I not save him?  
  
My head aches and my chest is tight. It is painful to breathe. I sob—I do. I am not ashamed, here at least, to admit it. The only person who knows the depth of my sorrow is our dear Mrs. Hudson, and she has been strength and kindness and calm and sympathy personified these past three years. I am reminded, when I am at my darkest and she is gently rubbing my arm (proprieties be damned—yes she does come into our bedrooms), that she knows all. She lost not only her child but her husband to cholera. She knows the depth of my despair. She does not tell me these things directly, any more than she tells me that, having both a husband and a son, she is hardly alarmed by anything she might glimpse whilst tending to me (as she did with Sherlock, who was so very unconcerned with modesty in our homely rooms). But she sits on the side of my bed and rubs my arm and murmurs soft, meaningless words of comfort and sorrow. The words do not and cannot repair the rending of my heart, but their utterance ensures me that I should not be ashamed nor reticent. In her presence I can be and am honest.  
  
Sherlock and I were in love deeply, passionately, hopelessly, and the day he died my entire being cracked in two and I do not believe that anything can or will ever repair it.  
  
[As there often is, there is a clear break in the writing. The doctor’s handwriting had, over the past few paragraphs, grown more and more erratic. Apparently completely overcome by his emotions, he set down his pen—there is actually a mark on the side of the manuscript, as he uncharacteristically simply dropped his pen. When he took it up once again, it is stronger and firmer.]  
  
I have said that I laid out the “final problem” as it occurred, and I did—well, other than not supplying the real name of our nemesis (there is no Professor Moriarty, per se—I selected that name on Sherlock’s suggestion—some tutor of his childhood for whom he had an intense dislike). What I quite obviously did and could not do was to reveal the actual contents of Sherlock’s final letter to me. I have it still and enclose it with the manuscript. I have no need of reading it again; I have over the years memorised it.  
  
Sometimes the word buoy me up and bear me on a wave of joy to heaven, and sometimes they drag me down to the depths of despair I did not know existed outside of Dante.  
  
Sometimes they cut worse than a thousand knives.  
  
It is baffling, really. They are the same words, every single time. How can they lift me up at one reading and bury me the next?  
  
I believe that the answer simply is that they are Sherlock’s words—and as he always did, from that very first meeting—they compliment me and confound me and insult me and embrace me; they envelop me as he did. From the very beginning I was his to do with as he wished—  
  
And he was mine.  
  
Oh, the wasted time at the beginning! Those early, hesitant attempts of his to express his feelings for me. I was a blind man, even to my own impulses. How could I have not seen it? How did I, for so long, deny it?   
  
From the first, there was an admiration—an _affection_ —that I had never experienced with anyone else. His interest in me, his inclusion of me in his cases—insistence, really—his complete ease (to the point of immodesty) around me—how could I have not construed it?  
  
Perhaps I did. Perhaps I not only acknowledged but returned his sentiment. I did not do it consciously—not at the first—but yes, I displayed an openness with him and towards him that I had never and have not since offered to any other human being.  
  
I consider the first of my expressions my treatment of his headaches—the earliest of his foibles exposed to my medical eye and mind—as probably the very first, tentative attempts at returning his attentions. I did not—I really, truly, did not at that time realise his feelings for me or mine for him, but I also had never considered laying my hands on a patient in the way that I did to ease his pain. And yes—it did. It gave me a feeling, not just of joy, but of _completeness_ to touch him.  
  
I did not like to see him ill or injured, of course, but I did revel in the opportunity to take a hold of his sinewy arm; put a comforting and supportive arm around his waist. Touching him to take his pulse or check for fever thrilled me.  
  
Did I want to do more than that, so early in our companionship? Perhaps I did. I do recall quite distinctly wondering what his curls, innocent of any attempts to tame them, would feel like under my fingers. Other than that, I believe that I perhaps put my feelings down to my deep (and honest) admiration of his brilliance; his uniqueness.  
  
That he had chosen me—dull, ordinary John Watson—well. I am still flabbergasted.  
  
Oh, yes, I do know—I can hear him now, pointing out that I am hardly dull or ordinary. How many English doctors have multiple bullet wounds and impressive scars? How many carry a revolver? How many are perfectly willing to bend and break the law in the pursuit of the truth? How many men not only do not flinch at that thought of tests for human blood but express their admiration and awe?  
  
I do remember that very first meeting—really, how did he, seeing that I was a stranger, know that announcing the results of his experiments with haemoglobin would not shock and horrify me? He is the most observant man in England (except for his brother, of course). If he, at that first glance, thought it acceptable to rush over and announce his findings—what did he see in me that I was not aware of?  
  
Whatever it was, I am grateful that he did not only observe but act on it, for if he had not, there would have been no possibility of us sharing rooms.  
  
I am exhausted. This day has been particularly difficult. I am not certain as to why. It is not the anniversary of our first meeting. Neither of us celebrate birthdays this month. It is, as I have mentioned, not yet quite three years.  
  
Perhaps it is simply because it is springtime in London, and I long for the opportunity to throw open the windows, to air out our rooms from some dreadful, noxious experiment, and to hear once more him play his violin.  
  
To hear him complain about how dull the criminals were.  
  
To hear—oh to hear him exclaim, one final time—  
  
“Come along, John. The game is afoot!”  
  
[There is a space, and then a final note in the doctor’s firm hand.]  
  
To hear him say anything at all.   
  
I do love you, so very, very much.  
  



End file.
